WHY Do So MANY Women Have Breast Cancer?

I know, the title seems to invite death – but it’s the opposite. To read where this title came from, click here: http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/search/label/Introductions

The roommate of our foster daughter is somewhat estranged from her mother and through the grapevine last week, discovered that her mother had had a preliminary diagnosis of breast cancer. It turned out to be benign cysts, but Liz raised the immediate question: Why do so MANY women have breast cancer?

A legislator in the district in which I live sent an email to her constituency that she had finished a recent session (though it ended deadlocked and a special session is in the works). She also shared that she was in the final stages of ovarian cancer and she was in hospice. We all raised the question: Why do so MANY women have cancer?

Is it something in the environment? Is it the fast food and processed foods we eat constantly? Is it because we’re living longer that cancers get a chance to grow? Is it because we’re better at detection now and deaths that were at one time “unexplained” now have a clear cause?

Well, a dose of the facts never hurt anyone – it only shakes preconceived notions and perceptions.

FACT: Incidence of Breast Cancer

1975-80 – held steady at 110/100,000 women

1980-87 – increased by 4% per year

1987-1994 – held steady at 140/100,000 women

1994-99 – increased by 2% per year

1999-2006 – decreased by 2% per year to 120/100,000 women

(http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@nho/documents/document/f861009final90809pdf.pdf)

What causes breast cancer? The short, concise answer is: “Don’t know, trying to find out.”

There are risk factors – none of which are related to the environment or food additives. In order, they are advancing age, family history, use of hormones, high doses of radiation (ie – nuclear reactor), obesity, booze and a fatty diet.

So as people get older and exercise less they increase the risk of breast cancer. The perception that it’s everywhere, while frightening, isn’t exactly true – HOWEVER the fact that the longer you live the more friends you have is an observable phenomenon. That increase in the number of friends makes it a statistical certainty that your chance of knowing someone with breast cancer will approach 100%.

This all means…what?

For me it means I will continue to write this blog; next year I will join one of the endurance events targeting fund raising to find a cure for breast cancer and I’ll speak at Cooper’s Relay For Life like they asked me to do this year.

It means we’ll all keep fighting, bankrolling, inspiring and looking for ways that a cure for one kind of cancer can apply to another kind of cancer.

Image: http://blogs-images.forbes.com/glennllopis/files/2011/04/risk.jpg